


Sweet Peas

by PaintedVanilla



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Jealousy, M/M, Unrequited Love, Vomiting, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 20:56:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11814036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaintedVanilla/pseuds/PaintedVanilla
Summary: John is drowning in a garden of his heart.





	Sweet Peas

It is a Wednesday, sometime during January, when John Laurens' throat begins to hurt.

He ignores it at first; it’s winter. Everyone is catching a cold because it’s _cold_. Winters in New York are significantly chillier than they are in South Carolina; he should be expecting to get sick. He wanders the lecture hall and asks if other students have any cough drops. Once he acquires one, he takes it and sits back down.

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he pulls it out; a notification for Alex’s twitter. Rather than something witty, or something snarky aimed directly at a politician, it’s a photo of him and Elizabeth Schuyler. Again. The caption reads _my dearest Eliza,_ followed by seven different emoji’s. John rolls his eyes, drops his phone on the table and sucks on the cough drop. It’s not helping his sore throat.

By the time John is heading back to his dorm, his cough drop is gone and his throat is hurting worse than it was before. He’s not far from his room when he begins coughing; he has to stop walking and duck his face into his elbow. Other students pay him no mind; he’s sick in the winter, what else is new? John clears his throat when he’s finished and feels something soft settle in the back of his mouth.

John clears his throat again, awkwardly, and tries to swallow whatever it is back down, but that only sends him into another coughing fit. He ducks into the nearest bathroom and stands in front of one of the sinks; the man who was in there washing his hands gives him a strange look as John stumbles in coughing. Once he gets it back under control, he can feel something still settled in the back of his throat. With no regard for the stranger standing next to him, he reaches into the back of his throat and pulls it out.

The man standing next to him gags and says, “Dude, gross!” but once John has removed the item in his throat they’re both silent. The man gives him a look that says _yikes_ and grabs some paper towels before rushing past him and out the door.

Between his thumb and index finger, John holds a single flower petal. It’s small and pink and damp, and John lets it fall from his hand into the sink. He leans down and puts his head in his hands and takes a deep, shaky breath.

_Alexander._

The very thought of him brings on another coughing fit that overtakes John. He braces himself against the sink and coughs, miserably, until another petal settles in the back of his throat and he has to fish it out. It’s the same color; they’re small, dainty and frail. They must’ve sprouted somewhere in his lungs since Alex and Eliza had been together. They can’t have been there for long.

John washes the petals down the sink and drags himself to his dorm room, miserable and bitter.

By the time summer comes the petals are no longer content at the back of John’s throat; they settle on his tongue for him to spit out every other hour. He coughs and spits the petals out into the trash or the sink or the toilet and wills himself not to think about it. They’re sweet peas, tiny and pink.

John and Alex graduate, and it’s one of the few things Eliza isn’t there to impose on. She still has finals and John is thankful for an hour or two with Alex all to himself. Alex doesn’t know John is sick yet; he’s been keeping it from him, but he knows that can only last so long. Alex and John and Hercules and Laf and Burr all go out to a bar and drink to celebrate. John downs so much beer he nearly makes himself sick, but it’s the only way to keep himself from hacking up a lung every time Alex so much as glances at him. 

John goes home to his apartment and sleeps and when he wakes up he vomits a slew of booze and flower petals.

He’s okay for a while. The flowers don’t hinder him yet; he still finds it easy to breathe. He finds himself instilled with a bitter and selfish hope that Alexander will come back to him. They’ve never even been together, not romantically at least, but perhaps if Alex would just kiss him or touch him or fuck him it would stop the garden in John’s chest from growing, if not for a second.

On the day Alexander proposes to Eliza, John coughs up three whole sweet peas, perfectly intact, if not for the fact that their petals are a bit wilted.

In the endless days leading to the wedding, John is finding it more and more difficult to breathe. Every morning he wakes up feeling like he’s drowning and every evening he lays in bed miserably waiting for sleep to claim him. Stairs make him wheeze; he cannot move any faster than a brisk walk without feeling like he’s going to suffocate. He can’t smoke anymore without nearly killing himself.

It’s a beautiful wedding; John is the best man. He stands in his suit nearly choking to death trying not to interrupt the ceremony with his shame. He dances with Peggy Schuyler. He drinks champagne. He gives a speech. “Alexander is my closest friend. It can be very difficult to love him, so Eliza, I’m proud of you.” Everyone laughs. John is drowning.

Eliza looks beautiful; she looks happy; she looks like she is in love. How lucky she is, John thinks, to love Alexander and be loved in return. To love Alexander and not be drowning.

Sometime after the young Philip Hamilton is born, John can barely make it up the stairs to his apartment. He has to stop and breathe and choke on his affections for the love of his life. The love of his life, who has a son and a wife. John leaves flowers in the stairwell; his neighbors don’t appreciate it.

John’s apartment is littered with sweet peas, and now a small collection of anemones. The petals are purple and larger, and they sting more when he has to cough them up. His neighbors complain about the noise he makes. His neighbors complain about the smell of rotting flowers coming from his apartment. His neighbors watch him drag himself up and down the stairs and turn away from him like they’re afraid his love for a taken man is contagious.

John can’t smoke anymore. He avoids talking to people. Lafayette and Hercules and Burr and Alex all ask where he’s gone. John never has a good answer.

…

It is a Friday, very early in the morning, when Alexander is woken up by a phone call.

Eliza stirs next to him and groans, and Alex nearly blinds himself trying to read the caller ID before picking up the phone, “John?” He asks, “Dude, it’s like four in the morning, what’s - ”

“Alexander,” John says, and his voice is hoarse, “I need to ask you something important.”

Alex sits up in bed and leans against the headboard, “What? Where are you? What’s wrong? Why are you talking like that?”

“Alexander,” John continues, not having the breath to answer his questions, “Do you love me?”

Alex blinks confusedly, “What?”

“Do you love me?” John asks desperately, “Have you ever loved me? Have I ever been anything to you besides a hook up?”

“John,” Alex says sternly, glancing at Eliza to make sure she’s definitely still asleep, “of course I think more of you than that - ”

“But do you love me?” John whines, “Did you? Can you? Will you ever?”

“John, where is this coming from?” Alex snaps.

“Do you love me?” John begs to know the answer; the garden he’s drowning in has already told him, but John needs to hear Alex say it himself.

Alex huffs, “John, you know I care about you. You’re my best friend.”

 _“But do you love me?!”_ John wails, which is too much for him and sends him straight into a fit of coughing and dry heaving. Alex nearly drops his phone.

“John?” he asks, “Are you okay? What’s wrong? Where are you?”

John is silent for a long time, trying to catch his breath, “Please,” he whispers, “Tell me.”

Alex presses his lips into a thin line, “No.”

…

It is a Friday, very early in the morning, when John Laurens dies, a tangle of anemones blooming and rotting in his lungs; his throat; his mouth; suffocating him in a garden of his heart.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Sweet Peas_ are symbolic of departure after having a good time.  
>  _Anemones_ indicate fading hope and a feeling of having been forsaken.


End file.
